Wireless communication techniques based on multiple subcarriers, such as an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) technique, are gaining worldwide popularity due to their broad applications. For example, an OFDM based communication system may be used in a plurality of networks including Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax) networks, Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) networks, Wireless Broadband (WiBro) networks, etc.
The OFDM technique uses a plurality of closely-spaced orthogonal subcarriers to carry data. For example, the data may be allocated on a plurality of parallel data channels, one for each of the subcarriers. Each of the subcarriers may be modulated with a conventional modulation scheme, e.g., quadrature amplitude modulation, at a relatively low symbol rate. In addition, based on the OFDM technique, an inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) may be performed on OFDM symbols representing the data on a transmitter side of the OFDM based communication system, and a fast Fourier transform (FFT) may be performed to recover the OFDM symbols on a receiver side of the OFDM based communication system. Signals including the OFDM symbols are transmitted from the transmitter side to the receiver side through a communication channel.
In reality, the communication channel may have an effect on the signals when the signals are transmitted. The receiver side may need knowledge of the communication channel to remove such effect, in order to accurately recover the data. To facilitate estimation of the communication channel, signals known to both the transmitter side and the receiver side, i.e., pilot symbols, may be inserted in OFDM symbols on the transmitter side. The receiver side may perform channel estimation based on resource blocks in received signals, and each of the resource blocks includes a plurality of OFDM symbols and, hence, pilot symbols.
For example, the transmitter side may transmit signals including OFDM symbols from multiple transmitting antennas simultaneously, and each of the transmitting antennas transmits one data stream. Multiple receiving antennas on the receiver side each may receive the signals transmitted from the multiple transmitting antennas.